Every now and again I wish I didn’t have the memory I do. I wish I wasn’t so adept with numbers and dates. Wish old pictures weren’t so clear.
Today marks ten years since that ridiculous night. Ten years since a day I remember nothing about preceded a night that is still too sharp in my mind.
He pulled a knife on me.
And the whole thing still seems like a nightmare that couldn’t possibly have happened.
That fucking misguided, broken boy. I’d feel sorry for him had the whole thing not broken me so hard. Had he not reopened the wound so many times after for so many years.
I navigate that moment and the many moments after pretty well the rest of the year. But May always hurts a bit. Today always hurts a bit.
I know hope bloomed within all that darkness. I know growth eventually thrived. I know I turned terribly poisonous lemons into the most amazing lemonade I ever tasted. But even still. I mourn.
I don’t mourn the life I once had. Nor do I mourn the future I once pictured. I mourn the addition of yet another person’s betrayal. I mourn another part of me being bound and scarred. I grieve all of that manipulation. My heart hurts to think of all the security that was ripped out from under me.
I have created so much goodness out of the hell that night caused. But I wish I hadn’t needed to.
Tonight, I knew I needed to get out of the house and just walk. S came with me. It drizzled some of the walk. Rained some. We walked some. Ran some. It was cathartic as fuck.
10 years.
Still, one foot in front of the other.